TIPTON, Mo. - The Jamestown Eagles boys basketball team won a close game against the Tipton Cardinals 59-52, Dec. 6.
The game was tied at 17-17, after the first quarter. But in the second quarter, Jamestown began to build a steady lead after outscoring Tipton 15-8. Heading into halftime, Jamestown led Tipton 32-25.
Both teams had trouble scoring in the third quarter, as Jamestown only scored 10 points in the quarter, but held Tipton to only nine points. Jamestown led by as much as 10 points in the third quarter at 38-28. By the end of the third quarter, the Eagles lead the Cardinals 42-34, thanks to Clark Rohrbach' three-pointer at the buzzer.
Jamestown head coach Jay Thompson said Tipton's man-to-man pressure gave the Eagles problems in the third quarter.
"We struggled trying to execute our sets coming out of the locker room in the third quarter because of their man-to-man pressure," Thompson said. "We were not strong with the basketball and let them push us out of our spots."
Tipton's defense also forced a good number of turnovers, as Jamestown turned the ball over eight times in the second half of the game.
Thompson said the team has had trouble with turnovers.
"We have struggled with turning the ball over so far this season," Thompson said. "We are a young team and will get better with experience. We need to be better at executing on the offensive end and running our counter plays to give us some breathing room."
While the third quarter was low on scoring, the opposite was true for the fourth quarter, as both teams started to get in a groove on offense. Jamestown built on its lead, as they started to pull away from Tipton with the score 50-36 at 4:08 left in the game. But the Cardinals started to find some success on offense, as they mounted a comeback effort with a 10-2 run to make it a 52-46 game with 1:46 left to play. Tipton outscored Jamestown 18-17 in the fourth quarter.
Thompson said the Eagles were able to take advantage of Tipton's double teams and made easy buckets at the rim.
"Tristan Jones hit a big three and Clark was able to get some layups in transition," Thompson said. "Tipton had to start fouling us and we were able to knock down some big free throws."
Jamestown went 5-10 from the free-throw line in the second half.
Thompson said his team will get better at closing out games, as the young players gain more experience.
"Four of our starters have not seen late game minutes in their careers and our sixth man is a freshman," Thompson said. "We will get better, as the season goes on, with learning to handle pressure and end-of-game situations. Our whole system is new to these guys and I like the progress we have made this early in the season."
With under a minute to play, Tipton had cut the lead down to five points at 54-49. But Jamestown put the game out of reach, thanks to free throws and two offensive rebounds by Clark Rohrbach, including a put back after a missed free throw to make it a 58-49 game with 20 seconds left in the game.
Rohrbach led the team with 32 points. Christian Snyder was second with 10 points and Tristan Jones scored nine.
"Clark is the leader of our team," Thompson said. "Whenever he gets going, the whole team does. He hit some big shots at the end of the first and third quarters which allowed us to seize the momentum going into the second and fourth quarters. This is when we were able to go on a run and hit some shots to build our lead."